Signs of hope for some who are facing foreclosure

Sunday

Nov 25, 2012 at 6:00 AM

Aaron Nicodemus ON BUSINESS

I recently wrote a column about a Webster trailer park owner, Joseph R. Kunkel, who is in danger of losing his family’s park and property because his bank unilaterally decided not to renew his commercial loan — even though he had not missed a payment in five years. After failing to find another bank willing to take on the loan, Mr. Kunkel faced the prospect of losing his home and business in one fell swoop. The bank had notified Mr. Kunkel that it intended to foreclose on his property in October.

After that column appeared, Mr. Kunkel told me that People’s United Bank of Bridgeport, Conn., gave him an extension through February of 2013, while he attempts to find new financing. Several local banks have expressed an interest. Stay tuned.

Another good thing has apparently sprung from that same column.

It was read by some employees of a Boston-based nonprofit called Boston Community Capital, a 27-year-old organization that, among other things, helps people who are in foreclosure to stay in their homes. BCC founded and operates SUN, the Stabilizing Urban Neighborhoods program, which has helped 303 families facing foreclosure refinance their mortgages and stay in their homes. While the majority of those homes are in greater Boston, four are in Worcester and one is in Blackstone. BCC’s Executive Director Elyse D. Cherry tells me the program is looking to expand into Worcester County.

Sounds too good to be true, right?

I thought so too, until I talked to Lauren Barrett of Blackstone, whose family’s home was saved from foreclosure by the SUN program.

Mrs. Barrett says her family’s single-family home was in foreclosure after she became sick after her pregnancy. The day care business she operated out of her home had already been hurt, bit by bit, as parents withdrew their kids because they themselves had lost their jobs. When Mrs. Barrett got sick, the business withered to nothing.

She and her husband, who still has a job, were faced with losing their home because of their reduced income. They had renegotiated the loan with their bank, but three days before the loan was to be closed, the mortgage was sold to another company. That new company would not agree to the new terms, nor would it renegotiate. Their mortgage was stuck fast at $2,700 per month. Foreclosure loomed.

As Mrs. Barrett was researching options — and fending off an alarming number of scam artists calling her offering, for “only” $2,500 upfront, to make their financial problems go away — she saw a WHDH-TV 7News report on Boston Community Capital and its SUN program.

She and her husband applied and were accepted. The key factor in their approval was that they still had some income and so could still afford to make a monthly mortgage payment. They just could not afford $2,700 per month.

In April, BCC bought their home at a short sale from the new company. BCC then set up with the Barretts a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage with a monthly payment of $1,800 per month. While there were closing costs, there was no upfront payment, nothing they had to do until BCC had purchased the property.

“It is allowing us to stay in our home, which is huge,” said Mrs. Barrett, who has three children. “My oldest was having anxiety issues, because we didn’t know where we were going to live. It has just been a huge, huge relief.”

Ms. Cherry, who is also president of BCC’s Venture Fund, said the SUN program is supported with $50 million in funds from “high net-worth individuals and foundations” who lent the program money, with the expectation that they will be repaid.

“It gives us an incentive to write good loans,” she told me. “It’s not a give-away. It’s not charity. You have to qualify for the program, you have to have a willing lender, you have to live in the home, and so forth. There are a lot of people we’re not able to help. But there are some we can, and do, help.”

While BCC and SUN are based in Roxbury’s Dudley Square, the program’s license allows them to write loans anywhere in Massachusetts. They are looking at expanding into other New England states, but while that process moves along the nonprofit is looking to help out in urban Massachusetts neighborhoods outside of greater Boston.

Let’s hope this column is read by a financially struggling family in Fitchburg, or Worcester, or Southbridge, or Westboro, or Athol, or Leominster — a family that is struggling to pay their mortgage, or are in foreclosure. They still have some steady income — from a job, Social Security insurance, a pension, disability insurance or some other source. They intend to continue living in the home that is threatened with foreclosure. Their lender is willing to sell. If all those marks are met, the SUN program can help.

Here’s the number for the SUN program: (617) 933-5880. Its website is bostoncommunitycapital.org/what/sun-initiative.

I expect at least a few people who are helped to drop me a line and let me know how things went.

Contact Aaron Nicodemus by email at anicodemus@telegram.com or at (508) 793-9245.